Insects are the most abundant form of animal life on the planet. From an industrial standpoint, insects are important due to their ability to transmit diseases and their role as agricultural pests. Therefore, efficient and safe insecticides are in great demand. One promising area of research in insecticides is the difference between fat metabolism in insects and animals. Animals and insects differ in the manner in which they obtain and use cholesterol. Vertebrates synthesize cholesterol while insects must obtain cholesterol from their diet. In contrast, insects have an absolute requirement for cholesterol in their diets. Fat metabolism in insects is thus a major target for development of agents with insecticidal activities.
Accordingly, there exists a need for the identification and characterization of fat metabolism-associated factors, such as the invention disclosed herein, that have a present benefit of being useful to screen compounds for fat metabolism altering activity. In particular, there is a distinct need for identification and characterization of such factors to identify compounds with cholesterol uptake inhibiting activity to act as insecticides. Furthermore, identification and characterization of such factors and their antagonists and agonists will provide new avenues to preventing, ameliorating or correcting cholesterol uptake-related dysfunction and disease in other organisms, including humans. It is envisioned that development of cholesterol uptake inhibitors in insect systems will also lead to the identification and refinement of new inhibitors of corresponding human proteins useful in blocking cholesterol uptake to prevent, for example, obesity.